Perkins Coie Calls Blum Suit Moot After Diversity Program Change

An anti-affirmative action group’s lawsuit targeting Perkins Coie’s diversity fellowship program is irrelevant now that the firm overhauled the initiative, the law operation argued in court Monday.

The diversity program is now open to all first-year law students, Perkins Coie told the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas in a filing. “Applicants are not asked or required to identify their race when applying,” the firm said.

The American Alliance for Equal Rights therefore “seeks to enjoin fellowships that no longer exist, rendering its claim moot and its arguments about irreparable harm unavailing,” Perkins Coie said.

Perkins Coie is still battling activist Edward Blum’s group in court days after Blum said he dropped a similar lawsuit against Morrison Foerster because he was “satisfied that this illegal policy was changed to include everyone, regardless of race and ethnicity.” It’s unclear why Blum apparently views Perkins Coie’s program changes, which were similar to those made by Morrison Foerster, as insufficient.

Perkins Coie lawyers are asking the Northern District of Texas to deny American Alliance’s request for a preliminary injunction. The group’s “insistence that employers like Perkins Coie can never consider race might reflect its view of what it wishes the law to be,” the firm said in its filing. “It does not, however, reflect what the law is.”

American Alliance sued Perkins Coie and Morrison Foerster in August over fellowship programs that sought to increase diversity demographics of associates at both firms. The group claimed the fellowships discriminated against an unnamed member who is “heterosexual, white and not disabled.”

Both firms after the suits were filed changed the eligibility criteria to feature race and gender neutral language. American Alliance “voluntarily dismissed its lawsuit before Morrison Foerster had responded to the complaint,” the firm said in a statement Oct. 6. “There is no private settlement or agreement.”

The group has sued other institutions such as West Point Military Academy over similar DEI initiatives. An 11th Circuit Court granted AAER’s injunction Sept. 30 that halted a grant program by venture capital firm Fearless Fund, in another lawsuit that targets private-sector DEI initiatives.

A separate Blum group, Students for Fair Admissions, won a US Supreme Court ruling June 29 that effectively barred universities from using race as a factor in admissions.

The case is American Alliance for Equal Rights v. Perkins Coie, N.D. Tex., No. 3:23-cv-01877, 8/22/23.